A fair share of drama

Perhaps sitting with a little old lady doesn't seem like a very exciting job. Well, I've got news for you.

You're right.

It isn't.

Some people might prefer baby sitting. Kids are cuter, after all, and there's also the romantic idea of shaping a young child's mind so they turn into the respectable citizen society wants them to be.

And yet, old people are cool too. You're not shaping their lives; they've already lived. They're not dead-end streets; they're bustling highways with hundreds of miles of history behind them. They have thousands of more experiences (if not thousands of more memories) and a full life that we can only imagine. And every once in awhile, if we're lucky, we can peek into their past like a beloved book and get a whiff of what life was really like.

A few weeks ago, I was sitting with my elderly lady friend. It's hard to recall her well-told story perfectly, but I'll do my best.

"I was expecting our baby," she told me, "and I knew it was time. So my hubby took me in the car and we were on our way to the hospital. But after awhile, I knew we weren't going to make it in time. So I said, 'Dear, can you deliver this baby?' And he said, 'I sure can't!'" She laughed heartily.

"So he drove me right up to the hospital door and ran inside. And he came out with six nurses running after him! I laughed when I saw that. They all came running out to the car."

"What happened?" I asked. "Did they all get inside the car?"

"Now, that's a good question," she said. "I can't remember what they did!"

We laughed together.

She went on to tell me how the baby didn't live more than a few days. "And we had them do a--what's that surgery called?"

"An autopsy?"

"That's it, an autopsy. They did an autopsy, and we found out that the baby's lungs and heart had been misplaced. That was why he couldn't breathe properly. Oh, and I was so sad," her sweet wrinkled face clouded. "I felt so bad for my poor baby! But then my dear husband reminded me that the baby was in a better place, and he can breathe well now. I felt much better after that."

Her story was simple. A humorous caricature of a frantic husband refusing to deliver his wife's baby and retrieving a string of harried nurses who trailed outside to all peer into the car. Then, scene two. The painful death, but blessed assurance. No fanfare or hyped up drama, but real. Incredibly real.

Yes, she is rapidly going downhill. She's not as "bad" as my grandmother, who convinced herself that my mom had married a black man (nothing against black men, but in their 30+ years of marriage, my dad has never been and never will be black) and kept asking for her sister who had been in heaven for ten years or more. However, after I left this lady for her nap she came out and started yelling up the stairs for her grandson.

"Dave! Dave!"

"What is it, Mrs. H?" I asked her.

"Oh, I just wanted to ask Dave if this is a good time for me to take a nap."

"Yes, this is a good time."

"It is? Oh good." She went back to her bedroom.

I may not be shaping young minds, wrestling bad guys, or becoming a new sensation, but even in my quiet job, I see my fair share of drama.

I saw it as I helped my lady unpack her box of clothing, pictures, and trinkets that had been mailed to her from her daughter across the States. She oohed over her plastic green beads like they were precious emeralds, and she gasped over her rich purple coat that she had forgotten she possessed. (Perhaps losing your memory can be a fun thing sometimes?) Then she nearly wept over the photographs of her son, who died of cancer in the past few years. She almost lost it again when she saw the picture of her and her deceased husband on their 60th wedding anniversary. My heart went out to her as I gently rubbed her back, sympathizing with her pain even if I couldn't empathize with it.

This lady has seen real joy, and real sorrow. She may never be famous, just like my working life may never be exciting. Yet she has had an adventure all her own, and she has sensed the Lord with her through it all. That is a life worth living.

Seeing bits of her small adventure and her fortitude, I'm encouraged about my own. There is an adventure for all of us; the art of life is to see it.

Life is a highway, so go out and live it.

My job has its fair share of drama.